The Good Princess
by Alys Blue
Summary: I asked the clouds why life was so cruel and difficult and tedious. I asked them why I had to choose between the love of my mother and the respect and pride of my father. And I asked them for a second chance, for another choice.  Palace Games, rewritten
1. Chapter 1

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own ATLA. I just borrowed a few characters. Please don't sue me.**

When I was a very small child, I used to believe that the clouds could tell me stories. I would spend hours lying on my back in my mother's garden, blades of grass tickling my neck as I stared wide-eyed at the fluffy, white puffballs gliding across the blue sky. I would form shapes and images out of the formless masses of clouds, award them names like "Scratchy" and "Fluff", give them long, involved histories and back stories, and then throw them all together in some epic tale of love and betrayal.

On days when I was feeling down, I would look to the clouds for guidance. Instead of playing God with their imaginary lives, I'd turn to a single cloud, form it into a sabertoothmooselion, or maybe a person, or maybe even an inanimate object like a rock or a tree, and talk to it inside my head as if it could answer me. When I got really caught up in myself, I would end up whispering things out loud. The servants milling about the garden, watering plants or weeding, would smile to themselves and shake their heads, but would not disturb me.

Once, my father discovered me on my back in the garden, by myself, whispering softly to someone that he could not see. He flew into a rage, dragged me up by the stiff collar of my formal attire, chastised me for dirtying my clothes, screamed in my face for playing childish games not befitting royalty, and even slapped me across the face when I started sobbing. Afterwards, I stumbled inside the palace, half-blinded by tears, to find my mother, princess Ursa, tending to Zuko's scraped knee, speaking softly to him while he sobbed, and I felt something inside of me harden and shell itself over.

I didn't return to the garden for years.

When I finally did, I was eight years old. My mother had just disappeared, without even bothering to say goodbye to her only daughter.

I had long since learned that the only way to get on my father's good side was to appeal to his cruel nature. Zuko didn't understand this. My mother didn't understand this. They both hated me. But even at such a young age, I knew that I had an advantage over both of them, that I was going places in my life because I had learned to adapt.

I asked the clouds why life was so cruel and difficult and tedious. I asked them why I had to choose between the love of my mother and the respect and pride of my father. I asked them why my mother loved Zuko more than me, fluffy Zuko, who chose love over success, Zuko, who was a failure at Firebending, and a failure of a prince. And I asked them for a second chance, for another choice, a way to be like Zuko and mother, to revoke all my unkind words and actions, as if they could grant it to me.

Hours passed. Tears rolled silently down my cheeks and turned to mud when they hit the ground.

The clouds never answered me.

After a while, I pushed myself up on my elbows and sucked in a shaky breath. I brushed the hair out of my eyes, rose to my feet, brushed off my backside, and turned around, only to freeze up instantly.

Standing in the doorway that led to the kitchens was a girl maybe a year older than I was at the time, dressed in the faded red that all palace servants wore, her light brown hair falling in waves across her shoulder. She looked surprised and frightened, uncertain of what she should do, a watering can in one hand and a shovel in the other.

I immediately took control of the situation. "You, servant," I said in my most commanding voice. "What is your name?"

The girl straightened a little bit and jutted out her chin. "Zelan, miss."

"Why are you standing stupidly in the doorway, blocking the way of royalty while managing to spy on the princess at the same time?" I asked, a muscle in my jaw twitching for good measure. I said her name, "_Zelan," _sneeringly at the end of my rant, as if she were something particularly disgusting I had discovered clinging to the underside of my boot.

"I, I didn't mean," she started, stuttering and tripping over her own words, but I cut her off.

"You're lucky I'm in no mood to deal with peasants," I said harshly. "Now get out of my sight before I change my mind."

I expected her to be visibly shaking, maybe even crying a little bit, but instead I found that as she bowed, her eyes seemed to sparkle dangerously, and when she spoke, all hints of uncertainty had left her voice. Instead, the way she said, "Of course, my princess," made me shiver inexplicably, and when she brushed by me in the small quarters between the fence and the door, a jolt shot through me.

She left the garden through the gate in the back, never once turning back to look at me as I watched her disappear past the royal guards, into the city, her hips swinging and her hair swishing back and forth. I glowered at her back, and then turned on my heel and strode purposefully back into the palace, all thoughts of my mother and self-pity and strange insolent servants banished from my mind. A good princess didn't wallow and dwell on useless things. A good princess had her priorities straight, starting with her country and ending lastly with her personal life.

And I was most definitely a good princess.


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: This is going to be a close friendship, perhaps/probably bordering dangerously close on a more intimate relationship. So yes, Azula/OCgirl. Azula is older in this chapter. Probably about a year before Aang got on the scene, so I guess about thirteen? Maybe fourteen? For the extent of this story, she won't be getting any older. I would appreciate more reviews from the eighty or so of you who read the first chapter, and alerts and such, if you would be so kind. I love me some reviews. ****Warning ****for slight torture/punishment scene in the chapter, involving fire whips and Ty Lee. **

I didn't return to the garden for years and years. I would purposefully avoid it when taking leisurely walks, made a point to stay away from the particular kitchen it was located by, and even petitioned to my father that he get rid of the garden all together, on the grounds that it was "useless and wasteful" because it produced no fruits or vegetables, only flowers.

Fire Lord Ozai denied my request.

So I continued to pretend that the garden didn't exist. When I felt angry, or sad, or confused and frustrated, I would practice my Firebending in the courtyard of the palace until my chest was heaving, sweat trickled down my cheeks, and I was huffing and puffing for breath. I would do the same form over and over again until my limbs ached and I felt like I was going to collapse, but I had finally perfected my position. I would train incessantly until I could no longer feel whatever trivial emotion had dug its claws into my heart.

And when training wasn't enough to numb what I felt inside, I would seek out my schoolmates Mai and Ty Lee. The things I would do to Ty Lee hurt her easily, both physically and mentally. If I shoved her, she would burst into tears as soon as she hit the ground, clutching her backside as if I had seriously injured her. If I yelled at her for being late for our play date or ditching me for a boy, she'd lower her head to the ground and promise me earnestly that she would be a better friend, her cheeks burning red with shame. There was certainly something satisfying in the way I could manipulate Ty's emotions when I had so little control over my own.

With Mai, I simply embarrassed her, especially when it came to her strong infatuation with my brother. Eventually though, when Zuko was banished and Mai embarked on his impossible journey with him, I had to stay satisfied with only my Firebending and Ty Lee, so I decided to combine my only two simple pleasures in life.

I would call her to my private quarters and criticize her for the littlest mistakes, such as mishaps in school, or almost imperceptible discrepancies in her dress, and then declare that she required punishment. The first time I attempted this, Ty Lee seemed confused.

"Sorry, 'Zula," she said uncertainly, "but I'm not sure I know what you-"

"Turn around," I told her impassively, without inflection.

Ty Lee frowned, but obliged. I silently approached her, conjuring a fire whip in my hand and letting it sizzle and sputter at my side as Ty Lee stiffened at the noise.

"Princess," she began imploringly, starting to twist around, but I clamped a hand on to her shoulder to keep her in place.

"Now, now Ty Lee," I said with a smirk, "you just earned yourself a few extra whippings than what I had planned, for your insolence."

When the fire whip cracked down on Ty's bare midriff for the first time, a blood-curdling scream tore loose from her throat. I brought it down again and again. But I was careful not to leave burns whose scars couldn't be healed easily, and soon Ty Lee's screams tapered down into quiet whines and whimpering. I stopped after only a few minutes of the assault, breathing heavily, the last bits of the quick jolt of adrenaline that had hit me as soon as the fire whip cracked down on Ty Lee's skin slowly trickling out of my system at the sight of my only friend sobbing on my bedroom floor.

I walked to my nightstand, dipped a rag in the shallow basin of water by my mirror, and tossed the wet rag on the floor next to Ty Lee. She flinched away from it.

"Get yourself cleaned up," I said quietly. "Then go to the servants quarters downstairs and have them call you a healer."

Exactly what happened after that is somewhat unclear. Ty Lee dragged herself up and out of the room eventually. I leaned against my windowsill for hours afterward, the cold wind pushing my hair behind my ears and cooling my burning cheeks as I thought about the feelings roiling around in my stomach.

Relief. Relief from the feelings of hatred that reared up inside of me at the sight of filthy peasant children as they trailed alongside their sweating, working parents, happy smiles upon their mud streaked faces, love evident in the worried gazes of their parents as they romped and played all around the grounds with other servant children. Relief from the envy of my brother, from the stinging rejection of my mother, the cold, harsh interactions with my father, and relief from feeling anything but the rush of inflicting pain on another living creature.

Then, worry. I worried about Ty Lee, and her newly inflicted wounds. I worried about infection, and that she wouldn't be able to find an adequate healer in the Fire Nation, and she would be horribly disfigured forever. I worried about what she thought of me now, and if we were still friends, and if she could ever forgive me. And I worried about why I was worrying about what she, not royalty, not anyone of any particular importance, thought of me, the princess Azula of the Fire Nation.

Lastly came the self-loathing. I hated myself because I actually cared about Ty Lee, and because a small part of me felt horrible about hurting the cheery acrobat just because I couldn't deal with my own emotions. I hated that a part of my hatred for myself originated in the fact that I felt bad about what I did to Ty Lee.

Confused, I flopped down on my bed, remembering the time when I had flopped down in the grass in my mother's garden in a similar fashion, ready to confide all of my trouble, worries, and emotions in the clouds in the sky. I sighed, and tears silently began to trickle down my cheeks of their own accord.

In the dead silence of my room, the sound of my door bursting open startled me, and I jumped up in surprise as a servant boldly entered my room without bothering to knock. She seemed familiar, with chocolate colored eyes, light brown hair, fair skin, and hips that swung as she entered my room. She was a bit older than me, a tad taller, but as soon as she was the infuriated expression on my face, she seemed to shrink into herself, her hand dropping from her hip and resting limply against her thigh.

"Princess," she began, but then seemed to remember herself, and lowered her head, bowing slightly as she shut her eyes tight, angry with herself for forgetting her place. "Princess," she said again. "When I saw the state of your…classmate, I was not sure if you, yourself, were in any danger, because she would not give me a straight answer." She cleared her throat and then swallowed. "I thought it my duty to make sure you were okay."

By this time, I had composed myself, and I stood stiffly in front of her. I recognized the servant as the girl who had walked in on my very last session with the clouds, but I said nothing about that. Instead, I said, "Really? You thought it your duty to _check up on me_." I smiled languidly and slowly drew closer to her. "If something had been wrong, just what would you have done to protect me?"

"I-I," she stuttered, but I cut her off.

"Ah, you don't know. What, were you suddenly inspired with an image of yourself gallivanting in here to rescue the poor, defenseless princess? Did you think you could be a hero?"

"No, your highness-"

I could feel my anger peaking. This girl had walked in on not one, but two of my infrequent private moments. I did not believe in coincidences, or accidents. But my body ached with fatigue, and I didn't trust myself not to take any punishment I dealt out to the peasant too far with the emotions still clashing inside of me.

"Leave," I told her, my voice shaking. "Just leave. Before I decide to punish you for your impertinence."

Tears were once again forming in the corners of my eyes, and I turned away from the servant so she could not see them.

"Yes…yes ma'am," she said softly, but I sensed that she made no move to leave the room, as I didn't hear the sound of her feet against the floorboards, or the squeak of the door opening. She shuffled slightly and I tensed. I heard her sigh. "I'll be leaving, then."

I didn't respond. The door opened and the servant silently stepped out, closing the door behind her.

I smoothed my hands over my clothes, tucked my unruly hair behind my ears, wiped the last of the tears from my eyes, and laid stiffly down on my bed, atop my blankets, imagining the outlines of fluffy clouds on my ceiling as I stared blankly up.


	3. Chapter 3

I saw the servant girl again some five days after the incident with Ty Lee and the fire whip. Sickened by both myself and my actions, I sulked in my own quarters for days on end, barely leaving to bathe and use the restroom, making servants bring food up to me rather than presenting myself at the family dining table, and sending my worried instructor's away with screeches and screams when they tried to make me leave. My hair was a huge knot atop my head, I had huge circles underneath my eyes, I wore disheveled, crinkled (not to mention, extremely informal) red robes, and my nails were overgrown.

Ty Lee attempted to approach me once, appearing in my doorway while walking on her hands, with a tray of sweets and chocolates balanced atop her delicate feet, and a blindingly bright smile on her face, but I made her leave. I took the tray from her, set it gently on my bed, and told her in a cracked, trembling voice that she should go away. I didn't raise my voice, and I didn't look as if I felt even remotely angry, didn't look as if I felt anything at all at the moment, but something in my voice, or perhaps in the flatness of the gaze I leveled on her, must have convinced her to leave me be.

The day after Ty Lee tried to cheer me up, I heard tentative knocks at my door. I had been lying on my bed with my head hanging off the edge, my tangled hair hanging down and touching the crimson rug, the blood rushing to my face and reddening my cheeks. At the sound of the knocks, I groggily opened one eye.

"Go away," I croaked, and squeezed both my eyes shut tight.

The knocks came again, this time slightly more insistent.

"Leave me alone!" I shouted hoarsely, kicking my legs against my mattress in a childish fit of rage.

The knocks came yet again, three of them, loud, harsh and distinct against the wood of my door.

Enraged, I jumped up and stalked haughtily to my door, yanking it open to the sight of the servant girl that had "checked up on me" after the incident with Ty Lee. She looked angry, of all things, with one hand on her hip, and a small lump of fresh, casual clothes tucked under her free arm.

She thrust the clothes towards me by way of greeting. "Here are some fresh clothes. I assume the reason that you smell like a common street rat might have something to do with the fact that you've been wearing the same clothes for days."

I openly gaped at her. I may have separated myself from the world for a period of time, I may have been lenient towards her on occasion, and I may not look very regal at the moment, but I was still the crown princess of the Fire Nation, and such a lowly peasant had no right to insult me in such a manner.

The servant impatiently prodded me with the clothes she extended towards me. "Take it already. Please. And if I were you I would take a shower before I put clean clothes on, or you will most likely smell exactly the same, albeit be slightly less offensive in appearance."

I was far too stunned to take offense at her words. I composed myself and drew myself up to what I considered to be an imposing height, looking down my nose at her and making my voice frighteningly cold when I spoke. "You have gravely insulted the child of great Fire Lord Ozai. You will be punished severely. What have you to say for yourself?"

The servant girl, Zelan, her name was, looked unimpressed with my threats. "Why? Because I interrupted your incessant, snobby, spoiled-brat sulking? Get your act together, _princess_¸ and perhaps you might actually intimidate me."

I attempted to interject at this point with a fresh string of curses and threats but she went on, angrily speaking over me.

"No, don't speak. It will only make you sound more pathetic, a shadow of what you could be, what you _are_, when you don't insist on spending every waking moment of your life feeling sorry for yourself. When was the last time you exercised in the courtyard? Associated with Ty Lee? Snuck into war meetings you were not invited to, made a servant grovel at your feet, destroyed an entire wing of the palace in a fit of righteous rage? Now perhaps who you are when you are not wallowing is not the most moral, genuinely good person there ever was, but it is far better than being a ghost with no personality, no life, no will. Where is your willpower princess? Where has it gone?"

By the end of her long-winded rant, Zelan seemed more exasperated than angry. She looked as if she were about to add something else, to break the stagnate silence that stretched between us immediately following her last words, but she simply shakes her head and stares at her feet. Another minute of silence in which I stare unabashedly at her, trying to figure out whatever could have possessed her to speak to me like she did, and then she looked up at me and met my gaze.

"I'm sorry, Princess," she says tiredly. "I don't know what I thought I could accomplish by coming up here. I just…cannot stand it when you act like this. I care too much for your well-being to allow this to continue."

She turns to leave, but I impulsively reach out and grab her arm. "Wait, don't go," I say before I can stop myself. "What you said…you care about me?"

And as soon as the words leave my mouth, I mentally kick myself. Of course she cares about me. She's a servant. If something were to happen to me, she would be out of a well-paying job, wouldn't she? It only makes sense that she wouldn't want me to get so depressed that I might kill myself.

So with these thoughts circling my head in the split second between my question and her answer, I didn't have time to anticipate that she might say something that would completely surprise me. I had no idea that she would look at me, smile broadly with a gentle blush coloring her cheeks, and say quietly, "Of course I care about you, princess. I love you."

Then she jerked her arm out of my grip and swept out the open door, slamming it behind her and leaving me standing dumbfounded in my room, with a set of fresh clothes clutched tightly to my chest.


End file.
